junior in high school. schools I am looking at are university of washington, maybe nyu, boston university and some ucs. Freshmen year i had straight As and was in sophmore level classes. Sophmore year, I got a B in pre calc for both semesters and a b second semester in ap chem. Junior right now, i will have all A’s besides ap calc ab which will probably be a c due to a really strict teacher. 2nd semester i think i can can get a b or a in calc though. How bad will a c affect my chances. I plan on retaking the semester 1 in the summer so my transcript will show the orginal grade with 0 credit and the new grade with credit so it doesn’t tank my gpa. how will these colleges feel about this. My gpa will probably be around a 3.86 and all aps taken in my first 3 years will be apush, ap chem, ap french, ap physics 1, ap gov, and ap calc ab. I will be taking 4 more senior year as well. thanks!
Could you please do a chance me/match me thread? It will give us additional details that might help answer your questions.
Things that are important…what is your state of residency? Do you have an annual budget from your family for college costs?
I’m guessing you will take the SAT or ACT in the spring and those results will be helpful also.
Re: your calculus grade…please get a tutor.
For UCs, they want to see all instances of a repeated course with grades, and will count the first C or higher grade when recalculating HS GPAs.
Better grades don’t hurt. But getting a B or two isn’t a crisis like all seem to think. These schools don’t only admit 4.0s
Agree with a chance me.
Please lose the blame. You are likely getting a C because it’s what you earned, just like you struggled a bit in pre calc. Math is foundational, as you move up, it builds from before. Own your C - you earned it. If you tell any college otherwise, they are unlikely to want you.
Good luck.
Try hard to avoid a C…get a tutor if you can. Also, check (if you haven’t) if your school’s transcript includes semester grades. My kids went to different HSs, and both only had end-of-year grades for 9-11 sent to colleges if a year-long class.
Also, you don’t mention the major that I can see. A lower grade in Calc matters most in STEM/Business majors. A B in AP Calc as a potential creative writing major may matter less than as a CS major.
Also, TONS of good schools will take you with Bs and even Cs in AP Calc:)
OP- if your math foundation is shaky, is there a reason you are taking AP Calc as a junior? It’s PERFECTLY ok to slow down and take the classes you are ready for- not to accelerate and then struggle. The goal is a reasonable challenge (i.e. you work hard to understand and master the material) NOT to show that you are ahead and then get frustrated that your performance is below your own expectations.
It’s presumably too late to drop down- but agree that a tutor can help. And when picking senior year classes- you don’t need to prove ANYTHING. Just take the courses at the level that’s appropriate for your foundation. And of course, meets your HS graduation requirements!
I’ve been a year ahead since elementary with accelerated learning. After pre calc, you have to choose between business calc which is really easy or ap calc, there’s no regular calc. I went with ap calc for more rigor. Definitely didn’t put in enough work at the start of the semester and I’m paying for it with a c. I think now that I know how much work I need to put in, I can get a b or a 2nd semester. If I do well on the ap test and retake semester 1 over the summer, I hope that the c will look less bad. Additionally retaking semester 1 means the new grade will count so no c affecting my gpa.
Repeating a course where you got a C or higher can look like grade grubbing. Since you mentioned UCs, they recalculate HS GPA with the first instance of C or higher grade when there are repeated courses.
That’s much better than what you put above, blaming the teacher. No school would want to hear that (or anything) - you got a C (if you do), it is what it is.
It’ll just say Calculus - C - 0 credit and under that calculus - new grade - 1 credit. Won’t say retaken i don’t think
Since it will appear twice on your record, it will be obvious that you took it twice.
Some schools like UCs require you to enter all of your courses and grades into the application, so however it is formatted on your high school transcript does not matter.
In the end, your record is that. They’ll see a C and a re-take.
If they take you great, if not great too - loads of great schools out there.
Given that you want to spend under $70K and you’re from Washington and you need to plan for med school, UCs aren’t in the picture anyway - except Merced which is a WUE school.
But improvement is always certainly welcome and at some schools will move the needle - as a general statement.